Winner of the 2017 William T. Goode Distinguished Book Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association

2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title 

“Tracing the journeys to adulthood of 150 impoverished kids from inner-city Baltimore, this powerful book illuminates the importance of both neighborhood and personal identity. These kids are our kids too, and this book helps us understand their lives more fully.”

—ROBERT D. PUTNAM, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University

“Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin have written a deeply empathetic and insightful book providing a nuanced portrait of the tremendous resilience and untapped potential of low-income minority youth attempting to pursue the American Dream in the face of profound neighborhood and educational disadvantages in the other America. Their analysis suggests large gains from housing mobility and community development policies to improve the neighborhood environments experienced by disadvantaged children and youth.”

—LAWRENCE F. KATZ, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics, Harvard University

“Coming of Age in the Other America tells the complex story of becoming an adult today in cities like Baltimore, where opportunities for youth are extremely limited. In contrast to stereotypes about minority inner-city adolescents, many of these resilient youth escaped the pull of the streets andachieved far more than their own parents. Yet, given the myriad of barriers that they face, too many others fall short of their potential. The account is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Anyone who wishes to understand how and why the path to adulthood is constrained for youth in our cities today must read this remarkable book. Coming of Age in the Other America is riveting, distressing, and uplifting all at once.”

—JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN, Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development, Teachers College and College of Physicians and Surgeons

Recent research on inequality and poverty has shown that those born into low-income families, especially African Americans, still have difficulty entering the middle class, in part because of the disadvantages they experience living in more dangerous neighborhoods, going to inferior public schools, and persistent racial inequality. Coming of Age in the Other America shows that despite overwhelming odds, some disadvantaged urban youth do achieve upward mobility. Drawing from ten years of fieldwork with parents and children who resided in Baltimore public housing, sociologists Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin highlight the remarkable resiliency of some of the youth who hailed from the nation’s poorest neighborhoods and show how the right public policies might help break the cycle of disadvantage.

Coming of Age in the Other America illuminates the profound effects of neighborhoods on impoverished families. The authors conducted in-depth interviews and fieldwork with 150 young adults, and found that those who had been able to move to better neighborhoods—either as part of the Moving to Opportunity program or by other means—achieved much higher rates of high school completion and college enrollment than their parents. About half the youth surveyed reported being motivated by an “identity project”—or a strong passion such as music, art, or a dream job—to finish school and build a career.

Yet the authors also found troubling evidence that some of the most promising young adults often fell short of their goals and remained mired in poverty. Factors such as neighborhood violence and family trauma put these youth on expedited paths to adulthood, forcing them to shorten or end their schooling and find jobs much earlier than their middle-class counterparts. Weak labor markets and subpar postsecondary educational institutions, including exploitative for-profit trade schools and under-funded community colleges, saddle some young adults with debt and trap them in low-wage jobs. A third of the youth surveyed—particularly those who had not developed identity projects—were neither employed nor in school. To address these barriers to success, the authors recommend initiatives that help transform poor neighborhoods and provide institutional support for the identity projects that motivate youth to stay in school. They propose increased regulation of for-profit schools and increased college resources for low-income high school students.

Coming of Age in the Other America presents a sensitive, nuanced account of how a generation of ambitious but underprivileged young Baltimoreans has struggled to succeed. It both challenges long-held myths about inner-city youth and shows how the process of “social reproduction”—where children end up stuck in the same place as their parents—is far from inevitable.

STEFANIE DELUCA is associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

SUSAN CLAMPET-LUNDQUIST is associate professor of sociology at Saint Joseph’s University.

KATHRYN EDIN is Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

“A Pound of Flesh is a critical and timely book on a great contemporary American injustice: the imposition of legal fines and fees through the criminal courts. Alexes Harris’ pioneering research documents the widespread practice of charging fines and fees to people who have contact with the criminal justice system—including some who are never convicted of a crime. The imposition of fines and fees creates a two-tiered legal system that separates those who have the ability to pay from those who don’t. Through careful fieldwork and revealing interviews, Harris shows how judges and court clerks use fines and fees to punish poor people in unequal and enduring ways. Even small amounts of legal debt can be insurmountable obstacles for people living on the margins. A Pound of Flesh is a revolutionary book that has already made an impact on the national policy conversation. It provides an eye-opening account of how the American legal system shapes inequality and how inequality impacts access to justice.”

—Becky Pettit, professor of sociology, The University of Texas at Austin

“A Pound of Flesh is a rich and disturbing account of the new administrative penology that has seeped into every corner of contemporary criminal justice. Alexes Harris uses a full analytic toolkit to show the structure of legal financial obligations that have eclipsed the traditional adjudication role of the courts. Everyone pays, both the guilty and the innocent. Her chilling account reveals the strong embrace of these fines and fees—a regime of defendant taxation—in the everyday culture of criminal justice. Harris sounds an alarm for those who place the principles of due process above the power of the administrative state.”

—Jeffrey Fagan, Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

“Until recently, monetary sanctions remained a largely hidden element of the criminal justice system. Alexes Harris exposes the costs and consequences of these sanctions through a detailed and far-reaching examination. Drawing on legal precedent, state practices, and in-depth interviews, Harris uncovers the unique penalties faced by the poor in encounters with the criminal justice system, as unpayable legal debt becomes a source of permanent punishment. A Pound of Flesh is a must read for those interested in punishment and inequality in America.”

—Devah Pager, professor of sociology and public policy,John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Over seven million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records often following them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, and housing. Court-ordered monetary sanctions that compel criminal defendants to pay fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution further inhibit their ability to reenter society. In A Pound of Flesh, sociologist Alexes Harris analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal justice system and shows how they permanently penalize and marginalize the poor. She exposes the damaging effects of a little-understood component of criminal sentencing and shows how it further perpetuates racial and economic inequality.

Harris draws from extensive sentencing data, legal documents, observations of court hearings, and interviews with defendants, judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. She documents how low-income defendants are affected by monetary sanctions, which include fees for public defenders and a variety of processing charges. Until these debts are paid in full, individuals remain under judicial supervision, subject to court summons, warrants, and jail stays. As a result of interest and surcharges that accumulate on unpaid financial penalties, these monetary sanctions often become insurmountable legal debts which many offenders carry for the remainder of their lives. Harris finds that such fiscal sentences, which are imposed disproportionately on low-income minorities, help create a permanent economic underclass and deepen social stratification.

A Pound of Flesh delves into the court practices of five counties in Washington State to illustrate the ways in which subjective sentencing shapes the practice of monetary sanctions. Judges and court clerks hold a considerable degree of discretion in the sentencing and monitoring of monetary sanctions and rely on individual values—such as personal responsibility, meritocracy, and paternalism—to determine how much and when offenders should pay. Harris shows that monetary sanctions are imposed at different rates across jurisdictions, with little or no state government oversight. Local officials’ reliance on their own values and beliefs can also push offenders further into debt—for example, when judges charge defendants who lack the means to pay their fines with contempt of court and penalize them with additional fines or jail time.

A Pound of Flesh provides a timely examination of how monetary sanctions permanently bind poor offenders to the judicial system. Harris concludes that in letting monetary sanctions go unchecked, we have created a two-tiered legal system that imposes additional burdens on already-marginalized groups.

ALEXES HARRIS is associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington.

Winner of the 2016 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems

Winner of the 2016 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award Presented by the American Sociological Association's Section on Race, Gender, and Class 

Honorable Mention, 2017 Outstanding Book Award from the Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section of the American Sociological Association

“Unequal City is a revelatory study that shows and tells how inner city young people struggle to acquire a decent education. It powerfully describes the everyday challenges these students face—illuminating how they navigate school and their local communities and the way they confront what too often holds them back. This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the relationship between inequality and urban education.”

—Elijah Anderson, William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Sociology, Yale University

“Carla Shedd has written an important book about how race and place shape the experiences of young people in Chicago. Unequal City stands out for many reasons, but most importantly for its empirical richness. Shedd has amassed amazing data and uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to amplify the voices of young people. If you want to understand what young people think about such topics as the police, schools, and in-equality, you should read this book. It is a timely and insightful book.”

–Cathy Cohen, David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

Chicago has long struggled with racial residential segregation, high rates of poverty, and deepening class stratification, and it can be a challenging place for adolescents to grow up. Unequal City examines the ways in which Chicago’s most vulnerable residents navigate their neighborhoods, life opportunities, and encounters with the law. In this pioneering analysis of the intersection of race, place, and opportunity, sociologist and criminal justice expert Carla Shedd illuminates how schools either reinforce or ameliorate the social inequalities that shape the worlds of these adolescents.

Shedd draws from an array of data and in-depth interviews with Chicago youth to offer new insight into this understudied group. Focusing on four public high schools with differing student bodies, Shedd reveals how the predominantly low-income African American students at one school encounter obstacles their more affluent, white counterparts on the other side of the city do not face. Teens often travel long distances to attend school which, due to Chicago’s segregated and highly unequal neighborhoods, can involve crossing class, race, and gang lines. As Shedd explains, the disadvantaged teens who traverse these boundaries daily develop a keen “perception of injustice,” or the recognition that their economic and educational opportunities are restricted by their place in the social hierarchy.

Adolescents’ worldviews are also influenced by encounters with law enforcement while traveling to school and during school hours. Shedd tracks the rise of metal detectors, surveillance cameras, and pat-downs at certain Chicago schools. Along with police procedures like stop-and-frisk, these prison-like practices lead to distrust of authority and feelings of powerlessness among the adolescents who experience mistreatment either firsthand or vicariously. Shedd finds that the racial composition of the student body profoundly shapes students’ perceptions of injustice. The more diverse a school is, the more likely its students of color will recognize whether they are subject to discriminatory treatment. By contrast, African American and Hispanic youth whose schools and neighborhoods are both highly segregated and highly policed are less likely to understand their individual and group disadvantage due to their lack of exposure to youth of differing backgrounds.

CARLA SHEDD is assistant professor of sociology and African American studies at Columbia University.